A reader writes in response to this post:
Strange how people can describe McCain as “working from the center” and claim he caved in or surrendered by choosing Palin over Lieberman as his VP. The very nature of working of working from the center is compromise. Compromise means that you sometimes have to give a bit to get a bit.
Palin shares a lot of McCain’s political views, especially about reforming the US government. She wasn’t his first choice, but she seems a good choice for McCain and she’s much more acceptable to the Right. Of course I’m biased. I wanted Palin as VP for some time now.
First, I don’t claim ‘McCain works from the center’. I said, that’s what he believes. But having said that, my argument back would be, Palin is not a reformer (unless she just became one last week). It is fact now that she did not oppose the ‘Bridge to nowhere‘ up until it wasn’t going to happen. She took the money anyway and spent it elsewhere. She is not against earmarks (as she claims to be), in fact, she hired a Abrahoff lawyer to do her bidding in Washington and Alaskans get more money per person than any other state. If Alaska was run by Democrats, the Republicans would be screaming socialism. Hell, John McCain has called out three of her earmarks in the past. She also supported Ted Stevens and was the director of his 527, she forced people to resign to test their loyalty and she tried to fire the librarian, because she refused to band books Palin wanted banned. Really, banned books? The last time I saw that going on was in Footloose. THIS IS WHAT WE LEARNED IN ONLY ONE WEEK.
You can’t be a hardcore Republican and also be a reformer. The problem with Washington doesn’t have to do with geography. What’s wrong with Washington/Politis is the Republican state-of-mine. This is what happens when you have all the power for too long. The same thing happened to the Democrats in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The problem with Republicans, it only took them six years of power to become corrupt. From her brief time in office in Alaska, Palin has shown that same state-of-mine; money, loyalty and abuse of power.
While McCain was certainly the most moderate of the Republicans running, he had to move hard to the right to win this election. If reaching across the aisle is what John McCain is STILL about and reform is REALLY the game he wants to play, there were much more qualified people to choose. If having a woman was that important, there were a half dozen more woman more qualified. If he had chosen Kay Bailey Hutchinson, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Sarah Palin was brought in for two reasons…to appeal to enough women to dent Obama’s lead, but most importantly, appeal to the base. That base is not looking to reach across the aisle. Hell, James Dotson stopped praying for rain and came out after Palin was announced, finally declaring he was going to vote for McCain. Thank God that’s settled. Obviously the McCain people know these contradictions are going to come out, that’s why they are withholding her from the media until she’s learns how to not answer a question.
Again, I’m okay with the pick, in fact, in terms of pure politics, I think it was a good one. However, let’s not pretend that this was McCain’s top choice and let’s not pretend this one was for the base.
